Friday, August 30, 2013

Chicago Public Schools Mandate Sex Ed Classes for Kindergarten Students

by Steven Ertelt
They are much, much too young to even
be thinking about sex and sexual acts at their age are the worst form
of pedophilia, but Chicago public schools think little boys and girls in
kindergarten are ready for sex ed classes.From a local report:

Some people may think a five-year old is too young for sex education. Administrators with Chicago Public schools do not.
New to the curriculum this year, mandatory sexual and health
education for kindergarten classes. CBS 2’s Dorothy Tucker took at look
at the lesson the little ones will be learning.

But parents are already up in arms about not only how appropriate the classes are but whether they distract from real education.

Like every other kindergartner, Angelina Yang is learning reading, writing, arithmetic–and now sexual health education.
“I want to know what kind of education she is receiving before she
gets that education,” said Angelia’s mom, Stella. ‘As a parent, I have a
right to know.”
“If he has questions, I’m happy to answer them, but I’m not sure it belongs in a classroom setting,” said parent Brooke Lyon.

ETR Associates—a sex program clearinghouse and offshoot of Planned Parenthood of Santa Cruz—admits
on its webpage that a program being taught in North Carolina schools
and elsewhere across the nation teaches toward four major “outcome
expectancies or behavioral beliefs.” Belief number 4 is described in the
ETR overview as “Hedonistic Beliefs.” Hedonistic philosophy places
pleasure above everything else—as the greatest good.

The usual suspects stumped by saying pro-life principles are about non-violence

I
swear I didn’t set out to spend three posts in a row haranguing the
hacks at RH Reality Check, and I promise I’ll get back to the many other
pro-abortion propagandists out there soon. But when they keep offering
up such spectacularly disastrous attacks…well, birds gotta fly, fish
gotta swim.
On Tuesday, Lauren Rankin, a Women’s and Gender Studies (don’t laugh) student at Rutgers University who ironically focuses on “the political use of shame,” went on a diatribe
inspired by something WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said in the
course of praising libertarian icons Ron and Rand Paul. He credited what
he called their “principle of non-violence,” including “aspects of
non-violence in relation to abortion that they hold.”
Boy, did that confound Rankin!

It is unclear, at least to me, how opposition to abortion is grounded in a commitment to non-violence.

If the fact that you can make it to the graduate-school level and
still utter such self-evident nonsense – not merely favoring legal
abortion but claiming to not even know why anyone else would consider it violent
– doesn’t tell you all you need to know about the state of American
education, nothing will. And it tells you just as much about RHRC –
ostensibly a professional site all about understanding the abortion debate – that whoever edits this crap let it slide.
(Before we continue, let me clarify that while I will obviously defend the quoted sentiment Rankin attacks, I consider Assange himself an international criminal and do not support him in any way.)

According to the National Abortion Federation,
there have been 6,461 reported incidents of violence against abortion
providers since 1977, including eight murders and 17 attempted murders.
Abortion providers and clinics have faced numerous bombings, cases of
arson, butyric acid attacks, death threats, kidnappings, and more, all
from opponents of abortion rights. In 2009, Dr. George Tiller was shot
and killed while at church with his family. His convicted killer, Scott
Roeder, is heralded as a “hero” in some anti-choice circles.

Apparently Women’s and Gender Studies doesn’t teach self-awareness, or Rankin may have noticed that it was just a smidgen on the hypocritical side to slime the pro-life movement with the crimes of a tiny minority the week after her website made headlines for opposing the awfulness of (supposedly) painting the entire abortion industry with a broad brush.
And let’s not forget that statistically, none of her numbers – spread
across almost four decades – even begin to approach the number of total
homicides committed in a single year, or the murdering done by the abortionists themselves since Roe v. Wade. Or that people on Rankin’s side get violent, too – more than 300 murders and 152 attempted murders since Roe.

In 1965, eight years before Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in the United States, illegal abortion accounted for 17 percent of all deaths attributed to pregnancy and childbirth. And today, around the globe—mostly in the developing world—at least 47,000 women die
from unsafe abortions each year (roughly 13 percent of maternal deaths
worldwide) and many times that number suffer serious and sometimes
lifelong health consequences.

It is impossible to quantify how many people in the
United States avoid accessing safe and legal abortion care because of
fear of harassment and intimidation, but with 5,165 abortion clinics
reporting some form of disruption or harassment in 2011 alone, it’s safe
to assume that it plays at least a small role; people often avoid
accessing the basic reproductive health care to which they have a
constitutional right because of virulent hostility from abortion
opponents.

Ah, the pro-abort’s favorite kind of claim: “impossible to quantify.”
After slogging past the heavy-handed use of clichéd adjectives to drive
home how unquestionably wholesome Rankin really, really wants you to
consider abortion, one might note that perhaps the abortion industry’s
definition of “disruption or harassment” isn’t exactly objective. In
pro-aborts’ minds, do you actually have to do something – say,
block a door, make a threatening phone call, scream in a patient’s face,
etc. – to qualify, or do Rankin and her ilk consider it inherently
harassing to dare to protest or sidewalk counsel at all?
Next comes some generic whining about the latest wave of state abortion restrictions and clinic closings
putting women’s lives “literally at risk.” She doesn’t back up that
insipid claim with anything, so I’ll simply suggest that interested
readers revisit how well that line of attack held up the last time we examined it.
Rankin devotes the remainder of her piece to attacking the Pauls on a wide range of fronts, from the father-and-son duo’s pro-life efforts to various unrelated scandals in their pasts. Her objection:

While these white, cisgender men may be able to pick and
choose which political positions they like from the Pauls, marginalized
groups do not have that luxury. They are essentially asking women and
people of color to praise politicians who disdain and combat their very
existence. This is not petty partisanship; it is a fundamental lack of
respect for who we are as people […] this is evidence of general disdain
for and bigotry against women, people of color, LGBTQ communities, and
other marginalized groups.

Though she’s obviously full of it when she sneers about the pro-life
bills they’ve introduced, I honestly can’t fault Rankin for calling out Ron’s newsletter disgrace or Rand’s Civil Rights Act fiasco.
Both were genuine, serious scandals. But however badly those stories
might reflect on the Pauls as individuals, they have nothing to do with
the pro-life cause. They’re libertarians, part of a movement that’s all
over the ideological map – farther to the right than Republicans on
various economic questions, often at home with leftists on foreign
policy, drugs, and gay marriage…and divided amongst themselves on abortion.

For those of us on the front lines of the fight for
reproductive rights, many of us women, it is both demoralizing and
sexist to hear these men scold us for not embracing Ron and Rand Paul
more fully. As people who will never need to access abortion care, it is
telling that they aren’t more willing to check their privilege and
listen to the individuals whose health care and basic reproductive
rights are eroding before our very eyes.

By now, you’ve probably noticed how saturated Rankin’s tirade is with
talk of “health care” and “reproductive rights.” But something else
stands out even more starkly. Out of 1,403 words, not once did she even mention – let alone refute – any reason why
someone would consider abortion violent. She wrote an entire article
about this shocking, horrible, outrageous statement, put it right in the
title…and then strenuously avoided discussing her own subject’s plain
meaning. “Look at all this other (alleged) violence!” is not an argument that what you’re defending isn’t also violent.See any violence here, Lauren?

This is a recurring habit of prenatal execution apologists. Each
screed is more hyperbolic, belligerent, and self-pitying than the last
one, but the substance backing it up never rises proportionally; if
anything, the logical and evidentiary standards keep going down. They
arrogantly believe they can endlessly issue increasingly narcissistic and onerous demands, but have no obligation to confront any
of the truths standing in their way. Someone disagrees with your
desires? Simply pretend their cause for concern doesn’t even exist, and
fabricate a new, uglier motive to attribute to them instead.
If “privilege” is what roils Lauren Rankin so, she should look in the
mirror. She and her fellow travelers fall well beyond obtuseness,
beyond insensitivity, beyond even ideology. This is pure, unapologetic
megalomania.

Radical pro-abortion professors push for more hospital abortions

In a statement set to be published in the September issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology,
100 ob-gyns condemn new state restrictions on abortion as a “political
regression.” The article… criticizes hospitals for relinquishing
abortion to stand-alone clinics that are easily targeted by abortion
activists, and calls on the medical community to integrate the procedure
into women’s-health services and medical training.

“In our view, hospitals have disregarded the responsibility that our
academic predecessors expected them to assume,” the professors write.
“The savings in lives and money from legalization were soon forgotten and many hospitals now claim they cannot afford to provide abortions even if they wanted to….”

It’s a rare call to arms for the medical community, which tends to lay low when it comes to abortion. A 2011 study from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
found that while 97% of ob-gyn doctors in the U.S. have met with a
patient who wants an abortion, just 14% actually perform the procedure.

Hospitals provide just 4% of abortions in the U.S., according to the Guttmacher Institute,
a nonprofit sexual-health-research organization, and many facilities
limit the procedure to rare cases, like fetal abnormalities or when the
life of the woman is at risk. The majority of hospitals perform fewer
than 30 abortions per year. Others refuse to provide the procedure at
all….
In the end, many doctors are faced with the unsatisfying choice of
either performing abortions, or becoming a practicing ob-gyn….

Despite these obstacles, however, pro-choice physicians say they have
already made progress toward normalizing abortion in the medical
community, most notably by expanding training through residency programs
and family-planning fellowships. About 50% of the 200 ob-gyn residency
programs in the U.S. now integrate abortion into training requirements,
up from just 12% in 1992. Professors believe that a new generation of
doctors will use their training to bring abortion back into hospitals
and doctors’ offices. A 2011 study of ob-gyns found that female doctors
and those ages 35 and younger were far more likely than their colleagues
to perform abortions.

“It is very unusual for us to find new residents who don’t want to learn abortions,” [former Planned Parenthood board member and current UCSF professor Philip] Darney
says. “They may find it difficult to practice, but we have a whole new
generation of young women who are replacing the old men, and they have a
very different view about their relationships with their patients. It’s
very promising.”

Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas again demonstrates the sad reality of the cliché “the rich get richer.” Though it had an income of $22,296,294
in its last reported fiscal year, it continues to lament its poverty at
the state of Texas cutting funding to the organization – and now
rejoices that the Perot Foundation has donated $1 million to help
sustain death instead of life.
The Dallas Morning News reports
that the foundation was making the donation at a time when “some
charities are distancing themselves from the major provider of women’s
health services.”
The paper reports:

For nearly 100 years Planned Parenthood has helped to
educate men and women regarding family planning and general family
health,” Margot Perot said in a written statement through Planned
Parenthood. “Our family has supported this nonprofit for many years
because we are impressed with the work they do — providing birth
control, scientifically-based education, breast health exams, and basic
life-saving healthcare for women who cannot afford services otherwise.

Ms. Perot is incorrect about Planned Parenthood providing general
family health, of course. Planned Parenthood provides abortion, birth
control, and a few limited services.
The charity of H. Ross Perot, former presidential candidate, has given money
to places that help foster life and mental health, to noble
organizations such as Campus Crusade for Christ and various Dallas-area
churches, to cancer research, and to colleges and food banks. By all
accounts, they seem to support life and health in their community –
except when they walk into death. Somehow last year’s $15,000 donation
to Planned Parenthood turned into $1 million. However, Planned
Parenthood of Greater Texas seems to be doing just fine financially,
according to its IRS Form 990.

Planned Parenthood: where there are no mammograms or anything beyond
basic cancer screenings that have to be referred out to other places.
Planned Parenthood: where parental care doesn’t happen unless someone
wants the baby dead before he or she can live outside the womb. Planned
Parenthood: where the same affiliate recently built a new abortion clinic in Fort Worth,
despite being “poor.” How can this be a worthy recipient of one of the
larger donations the Perot Foundation has made recently?

Nationwide, Planned Parenthood continues to boast its riches. Its last annual report shows that the organization took in $538.5 million in government money in the same fiscal year.
However, it should come as no surprise to pro-lifers that the Perot
Foundation supports abortion, for Perot himself actually has a record of being pro-abortion.

Sadly, the area served by Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas has so
many real needs for life, for hope, for relief from poverty, better
comprehensive health care, and it’s a true shame that an organization
that exists to donate money to those with worthy needs would instead
choose a large affiliate of the nation’s largest abortion provider to
make such a large gift.
One million dollars for death is nothing to advertise.

Abortion: the video game!

Because
the evil legislators of Texas showed how much they hate women by
putting laws in place that the majority of both Texans and Americans
support, there is clearly a need to help those poor, poor Texas women
forced to have abortions before 20 weeks of pregnancy in clean,
well-regulated abortion clinics. And what better way to do that than
with a video game! Introducing Choice: Texas, a “very serious game”.

Choice: Texas, developed and designed by Carly Kocurek
and Allyson Whipple, uses careful research into Texas legal regulations
and demographics to create fictional characters. These characters
encounter realistic situations, financial and geographic limitations, as
well as personal choices and goals. By asking players to take on the
role of one of these women, the developer invite players to consider the
situation Texas woman might encounter, and asks the players for empathy
and understanding.
“This game is about an important issue effecting women in Texas, and
is intended as a means of furthering discussion and empathy,“ says Carly
Kocurek.
… “We really think games can facilitate further conversation about and understanding of these kinds of issues.”

Gosh, Texas women must have it so hard, with these laws that they themselves supported
and all. Clearly, this video game will make them all see how stupid
they are and how terrible life is in Texas, what with abortion not being
super duper easy, available in every single town, and most importantly,
free. Thank goodness these warrior women are putting their own
personal feelings on abortion aside in order to bring a video game to
the public that will enlighten us all!

The pro-abortion lobby will stop at nothing to force an
abortion-first mentality on women and families –committing violence
against weak and defenseless pre-born children, and ignoring commonsense
protections for women in some of their most vulnerable moments.

Lila Rose

“All women deserve access to health care in their local
communities”…even if it kills them, or their children. That’s the though
process behind this actual quotation from Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson
of Santa Barbara, regarding California’s ill-advised new law expanding
abortions in the state.
In what other realm of business does this bizarre standard pass
muster? Do you let a butcher build your house because you “deserve
access to” a carpenter? Do you let a nurse do your bypass surgery
because you “deserve access to” a cardiologist? Nowhere else does “we
really need it, therefore let unqualified people do it” make sense – and
the mentality doesn’t make sense here, either. In fact, it’s downright
dangerous.
In the wake of Kermit Gosnell, in whose abortion facility a woman
died from an untrained staff member’s mistake, it’s unthinkable for
lawmakers in California to push a law like this. How many more times
will my home state carry water for this unregulated industry, which
makes its money off the vulnerable moments of women and by murdering
pre-born children?

Abortion advocates are lauding the move, saying it would make
abortion more accessible for low-income women, or women who live in
rural areas. What is not mentioned are the many risks that come with
abortion, even the supposedly “safe” medical abortions such as RU486.
RU486 has killed over a dozen women
and injured many, many more. This is just one example of why allowing
unqualified non-physicians to perform abortions is a dangerous idea,
sure to put women’s lives at risk even more than they already are.

Pushing Elder Suicide in Slate Magazine

By Wesley J. SmithEditor’s note. While my family and I are on vacation, we are
running some of our favorite NRL News Today stories from the last four
months, entries from our “Roe at 40″ series, and an occasional update.As
we are in the midst of an elder-suicide crisis, we see elder suicide
promoted within the assisted suicide movement and its camp followers in
the media [www.nationalreview.com/human-exceptionalism/344577/elder-suicide-depicted-rational].
Now, continuing the recent pattern, the 2002 joint elder suicides of
Admiral Chester Nimitz, Jr. and his wife Joan has been extolled in
Slate. Euthanasia activist, Dr. Lewis. M. Cohen recounts how the
Nimitzs’ killed themselves together. Members of the Hemlock Society,
neither were terminally ill but experiencing the usual circumstances of
octogenarians. According to Cohen, these suicides were, “Deaths With
Dignity.” From the piece:

“Nurses were employed at their home
to attend to Joan Nimitz’s worsening health problems, but the couple did
not want to squander all of their money on such care. They were both
appalled at the vast sums spent at the end of life to sustain people who
were frail and sick and not likely to get better. They could clearly
envision–and they rejected–the idea of spending their remaining years in
a nursing facility. The admiral particularly worried his heart
condition might suddenly worsen and his wife would be unable to commit
suicide by herself. Joan Nimitz confided to the children that she, too,
feared that without her husband’s help, she would not be in a position
to ingest the barbiturate pills they had been stockpiling. The admiral
told his daughter, ‘That’s the one last thing I have to do for your
mother.’”

It is appalling that such attitudes should be extolled rather than
mourned. Anyone who loves and/or cares for elderly parents, aunts,
uncles, siblings, friends, cousins, or others should understand that
their loved ones are imperiled by such advocacy as explicitly promotes
elder suicide as empowering and somehow the most “dignified”–at a time
when elderly people worry about becoming burdens–which is our fault, not
theirs.

But this is where assisted suicide advocacy aims, with the terminal
illness limitation being just a political ploy to get people to accept
the principle that killing is an acceptable answer to the problems of
suffering. As the Admiral’s daughter–fully supportive of her parents’
suicides–admits:

“Van Dorn appreciates that the
[Vermont] law would not have directly helped her parents, as neither had
a ‘terminal’ disease. She understands that a civil rights movement,
such as death with dignity, takes politically expedient and incremental
steps. She anticipates that in the future the infirmities and suffering
of advanced age may also qualify people to request this option (as is
presently true in Belgium, Switzerland, and the Netherlands). Meanwhile,
one more American state will allow its citizens further control at the
end of life. And Van Dorn is looking forward to the day ‘when kids and
their parents will regularly sit around the dining room table and talk
about end-of-life issues the way you talk about college planning. Because, after all it is just another kind of planning.’”

In other words, planning suicides over coffee.
So, where is the Suicide Prevention Community? Silent! Perhaps afraid
of being controversial–which never stops the pro-suicide crowd–they
gently discuss suicide prevention, often in the narrowest of terms, and
certainly rarely (if ever) publicly opposing assisted suicide. Indeed,
usually the topic isn’t mentioned. Meanwhile, suicide promotion is
growing increasingly brazen–which substantially explains why each year
“invisible Suicide Prevention Day” comes and goes, making nary a ripple.

Fascinating research demonstrates unborn children can learn

By Luis ZaffiriniA
group of scientists at the University of Helsinki has published
findings in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that show
that children are capable of learning and retaining information much
earlier than previously believed possible – before even being born! More
specifically, they have found that babies in the third trimester were
able to retain and recognize specific words. These unborn babies are, in
fact, learning language while still in the womb.

In order to test their hypothesis, the scientists gave expectant
mothers a recording to play for their unborn babies in the last few
months of pregnancy. The recording was meant to be played several times a
week and it contained a false word created by the scientists repeated
multiple times throughout the recording among other sounds and noises.
By the end of the treatment, the unborn babies would have heard the fake
word more than 25,000 times before even being born.
Once the children were born, the scientists used
electroencephalography (EEG) sensors to detect whether the newborn
infants were able to recognize the word played repeatedly for them prior
to birth. Their electric brain responses indicated they had developed a
distinct memory of the word, they knew it.

This evidence indicates that language development begins much earlier
in human life than previously believed. It is also possible that these
findings will help scientists and doctors develop treatments for
children at risk for dyslexia or auditory processing disorders.
This is another amazing example of our lives before birth and how
even the unborn are living, growing members of the same human family.

Thursday, August 29, 2013

President Obama: A pro-abortion president or a catalyst for pro-life action?

Remember
those times Barack Obama was elected as president of the United States
and a bunch of pro-lifers insisted that abortion would expand under his
hands and it was the end of the world? Yeah. That didn’t happen.

Make no mistake: His abortion record speaks for itself and it’s not a
very pretty picture. His affection toward Planned Parenthood is almost
embarrassing, and his support for abortion rights is unlike any
president we have seen. But the thing about extremists is that they tend
to prick the consciences of others — in both directions — and in this
case, history will show that electing a pro-abortion president probably helped the cause of the pro-life movement more than if we hadn’t.
The Huffington Post reports on this phenomena in this article, entitled, “Anti-Abortion Laws Take Dramatic Toll On Clinics Nationwide,”
which details the increased number of abortion clinic closing “since a
heavy wave of legislative attacks on providers began in 2010, according
to The Huffington Post’s nationwide survey of state health departments,
abortion clinics and local abortion-focused advocacy groups.”
The story reports:

At least 54 abortion providers across 27 states have shut
down or ended their abortion services in the past three years, and
several more clinics are only still open because judges have temporarily
blocked legislation that would make it difficult for them to continue
to operate.

And even the abortion industry says this isn’t the usual ebb and flow of business:

“This kind of change is incredibly dramatic,” said
Elizabeth Nash, state issues manager at the Guttmacher Institute, a
reproductive health research organization. “What we’ve been seeing since
1982 was a slow decline, but this kind of change … [is] so different
from what’s happened in the past.”

Indeed, this dramatic decrease in abortion facilities, is such a
tragedy to the abortion industry that NARAL, one of the most vocal
abortion rights groups n the nation, thinks it’s having a very bad dream.

“This has turned into a nightmare,” said Kat Sabine,
executive director of NARAL’s Arizona affiliate. “The kind of efforts
the women have to take to get family planning or abortion services are
just incredible, and you can only get care if you can get out of the
community to do it. If you’re on a reservation or rural part of the
state, unless you have reliable transportation, you’re not going to get
care.”

The report continues to detail other alleged problems like the (very
reasonable in all other aspects of medicine) norm of waiting periods
between an abortion consultation and an abortion, noting 26 states
require at least 24 hour waiting periods. But abortion advocates call
the access to abortion a problem of equality for woman too, saying some
women can afford to take off work, have reliable cars to travel to get
abortions, and have other access to some lofty “abortion privilege.”
The reality is that the abortion industry wants an “all abortion all
the time” clause so that every woman who even has a passing thought
about abortion can be hustle to a corner clinic and kill the baby before
the mom has time to actually ponder her decision. In no other industry
is an impulsive life-altering decisions encouraged but in abortion. It’s
a shame to us as a culture that we have come to encourage such things
without thought or reflection, as if we have become a nation of abortion
automatons.

When President Obama was elected the first time in 2008, pro-lifers
reacted swiftly, and by the 2010 midterm elections, hope and change had
actually come in the form of pro-lifers fighting for the rights of the
unborn and enacting legislation that would battle the new president’s
abortion support.
Only history will tell of the ultimate outcome, but so far the winner
of the 2008 and 2012 elections was actually the unborn, some of whom
got to live because sleepy people woke up from the reality that we had
just elected someone who supported virtually all abortion.
While we long for pro-life leaders who help work with us to shape
laws rather than those against whom we have to work to create new laws,
we must realize that sometimes what seems to be the end is just the
beginning

We have an opportunity to continue working so that after 2016 we will
look back and see that, indeed, the nation’s most pro-life years
post-Roe. V. Wade were actually the 8 years we were led by a man who
supported abortion in all forms.

Pinterest and abortion: The top “abortion” search results

“Abortion” might seem an odd search term for Pinterest. But
since this explosive, relatively new social media site is increasingly
becoming an addictive place to share opinions, beliefs, and ideas – in
the form of images – we ought to check in and see just how abortion is
doing.
At various times this year, Pinterest has been ranked the 4th and 5th most popular social network in the U.S. Worldwide, the site’s been ranked 14th on the popularity list.

Of the first 20 images to show up (as of 7:04pm EST today) on Pinterest when “abortion” is searched, a full 19
of them are pro-life. What’s more, these images represent a creative
cross-section of truth – not simply a collection of bland talking
points.
Take a look at the images below (chosen out of the top 20 Pinterest
results), and add your own commentary on how you think these images
could be effective.

This image was the current top “abortion”
result on Pinterest. This image illustrates the stark reality that
abortion brings death and does not solve what many people view as a
“problem.” Instead, abortion creates its own host of true problems – chief among them the unnecessary death of an innocent child. It’s time we learned that death is never a solution…

This image puts a face to the Down syndrome holocaust
that is occurring today. Studies indicate that at least 90% of babies
diagnosed with Down syndrome in utero are targeted for abortion today.
Parents whose children have been diagnosed with Down syndrome would be
aided by learning the real truth about these beautiful children, and by
being put in touch with a network of other parents who have been in the
same situation. Live Action’s own Cassy Fiano relates five things new
parents of children with Down syndrome need to know here.

Nancy Flanders has also written an article introducing our readers to Noah’s Dad. Noah’s Dad writes beautifully
about the joy of life with a son diagnosed with Down syndrome. His
writing has saved other babies just like Noah. The bottom line is this:
parents need to be exposed to the real facts, the real truth, and the real, beautiful images like this one on Pinterest.

Even Nietzshe – arguably a major influence on Hitler’s thinking – realized that people don’t always want to know the truth. Of course, this opens people up to the deception and lies
of the abortion industry. We must take it upon ourselves to broadcast
the truth until everyone hears it – whether they want to or not. As this
poster accurately proclaims, “abortion kills.”

Few images could be more accurate or more straightforward than this one. The recent Kermit Gosnell trial (where
an abortionist was tried and convicted of murdering babies after failed
abortion attempts) highlighted a major inconsistency in our nation. How
can a few inches or a few seconds be the deciding factor in whether or
not an innocent human being can be killed?
The image below presents the same question in an even clearer way. (It is in the top 50 results on Pinterest.)

This image gives a unique twist on
illustrating the selfishness of many abortion decisions. The majority of
abortions are done for reasons that boil down to convenience or
choosing an “easier life” for oneself. Are such things truly worth the life
of an innocent child? Is any reason really good enough to execute a
small child with no voice or ability to help herself? Have we become so
callous to the daily sacrifice of children that we fail to speak up
about abortion?

This beautiful images illustrates the
humanity and perfection of an unborn child. This child is at a similar
age to thousands of children who are aborted throughout our nation. And
his beautiful feet speak volumes for the right of children just like him
to live.

This image (the 2nd to come up on my
Pinterest abortion search) is perfect for a social media site in many
ways. Social media – and Pinterest in particular – is designed to be
personal. There are countless ways to personalize Pinterest, and many
use the site as a way to make a statement about who they are. This verse
from the Bible can remind users that, even before their life was
recognized here on earth, they were already known as the unique person
they are today. What a beautiful message about the timelessness and
value of every single human life.

So, how can you influence what people see when they search Pinterest for abortion? First, follow Live Action on Pinterest. You’ll find plenty of images you can repin. Second, read this creative article
by Katie McCann. And finally, find and create you own pro-life images
about abortion. Spread them as you use social media, and expose the
world to the real truth about abortion.

Personalized pornography: the explosive growth of ‘sexting’ among teens

August 27, 2013 (Unmasking Choice)
- The embarrassing political troubles of the unfortunately but aptly
named former Congressman Anthony Weiner has catapulted the term
“sexting” into cultural consciousness once again, prompting a sudden
discussion on what, exactly, “sexting” is—and whether we should be
worried about it. Dr. Keith Ablow, FOX News’ psychiatry expert, weighed
in with a column entitled
“What Weiner’s sexting scandal tells us about young women today,”
concluding that it tells us that too many women are not having Private
Part Pinups texted to them against their will. Rather, Ablow writes, “I
can tell you that the average young woman no longer balks at sexting,
watching pornography, or being the aggressor sexually in a
relationship.” Slate.com noted that while the rates of boys and
girls sexting—specifically, sending nude pictures of themselves—are
pretty much the same, boys are far more likely to send these pictures on
to their peers, resulting in often savage bullying that has culminated
in tragedies like the recent suicides of several young girls. While
Monsieur Weiner’s recurring predicaments have prompted a lot of
snickering from the media, the “sexting” problem in general has become
decidedly unfunny.
Some time ago, two of my colleagues and I were meeting with a group of
high school students who had expressed interest in getting involved
spreading the pro-life message inside their high schools. One of them
mentioned, almost off-handedly, that the pressure on girls to send
explicit pictures was constant—“they keep asking until you give in,” she
told us. Wondering just how pervasive this phenomenon was, I sent a
series of emails around asking various students whether or not that was
true—and what sort of impact that had on the high school culture. What
makes their responses even more shocking, I think, is the fact that all
of these students attend either Catholic schools or private Protestant
schools.

“I find that those who sext because of peer pressure or because they
are trying to keep someone interested are most often young girls,” one
girl responded. “I’m not saying boys don’t receive the same pressure
from friends, but I find that it is most often the girl’s job to keep
the boys interested, and what better way than to show them exactly what
they want to see? In those cases of peer pressure or those of keeping
someone interested, the people who had sexted most often tried to hide
it. What always seems to happen, though, is that the people who receive
the initial picture show it to all of their friends. Eventually rumors
spread, and friendships are ruined and people are hurt in the process.
It’s things like this that cause teenagers to hurt themselves or commit
suicide.”

Dr. Arthur Cassidy, a social psychologist commenting on the “sexting” phenomenon in The Guardian,
agrees: “I think it’s most dominant in young girls. Many more girls buy
glossy magazines than boys, and there are more female sexually explicit
icons. Statistically you also get more attention [on online social
networking sites] if you put up a photo of yourself and the more
explicit the photo, the more responses you get…Females have more sexual
pressure on them now than ever before, so rather than focus on the inner
person, it’s about looking at the body as a sexual image.”

That, of course, is the root of the problem: “It’s about looking at the
body as a sexual image.” A thing, not a person. An object to be
desired, not a friend to be made. Another high school student wrote that
a huge number of boys in her classes were viewing pornography every
night. When they arrive at school, of course, many boys are no longer
satisfied with forming intellectual friendships with their female
peers—they want to objectify them in the same way they objectify the
faceless parade of porn stars they viewed the evening before. They want
personalized pornography, a brand new sexual high. High school girls are
pressured into thinking that in order to keep and maintain male
attention, they have to provide the very tools the boys will use to
objectify them and render them faceless.

“To be honest I was kind of happy he texted,” ‘Cassie’ wrote, “At least
someone was thinking about me. We talked about everything from dogs to
push-ups. He asked me to send him a picture. I’m not stupid and I know
what he meant, but I asked him what he wanted a picture of. This is
where I should have drawn the line or perhaps even earlier. I know that
now and did then too but didn’t particularly care. He slowed my phone
down by sending me hundreds of mega-bytes worth of pictures taken of his
bare stomach and groin. I laughed. I don’t know why. He asked for a
picture again. I sent him one of my face. His next comment was a long
exaggerated ‘noooooooooo not that’ and then ‘you made a little mistake’
(another smiley) ‘I’ll give you another chance.’ Apparently finding it
funny, that I were his student he was trying to teach. I then walked up a
flight of stairs, went inside the bathroom, angrily took my clothes
off, snapped two pictures exactly, and sent them.”

Sent, and irretrievable. Everything about this interaction shows what
is actually at play in much of the gender dynamics surrounding sexting.
He asked for a picture—she was “not stupid, and knew what he was asking
for.” She sent one of her face—and, revealingly, that was precisely what
this boy did not want. He didn’t want to see her; he
wanted to see her body. The eyes may be the window to the soul, but
that’s not the type of connection he was after. Rather, he was seeking
something much more carnivorous—one-sided pleasure at her expense.
And—thinking that “at least someone was thinking about me”—she complied.
(The subtle social coercion in the underlying threat of “I’ll give you
another chance” is unmistakable.) It does not take a social scientist to
see that while there are two guilty parties involved in this
transaction, exploiting the insecurities of females in a
hyper-sexualized culture for sexual gratification is, at best,
predatory. And while girls are most certainly part of the problem, it is
the girls, most often (just as in so-called “recreational” sex), that
pay the highest price.

And that reality impacts the high school culture even subliminally.
“It’s hard to walk into school every day knowing that people there had
seen something they never should have, knowing that it would be almost
impossible to live it down, forget it and move on,” ‘Lindsay’ wrote,
“You’d always get smirks and snide comments, shouts in the middle of
class or in the cafeteria, even in the hallways walking from place to
place. You’d see it all over Facebook, comments you know couldn’t be
about anyone else. You wouldn’t be able to just leave your problems at
school because they would follow you home. It’s terrible what one little
mistake can do to your life. And it’s worse that there are even demands
for pictures still, after all that has happened to other teens because
of it. I don’t think these teenagers realize how much this can affect
their lives and the lives of the other people involved.”
Searching for self-esteem and whatever they define as “love”
(unfortunately fulfilling the old maxim that boys use love to get sex,
and girls use sex to get love), girls are increasingly collaborating
with our culture’s attempt to reduce them to sex objects in the vain
hope that it will bring them what they’re looking for. If “sexting”
brings them the attention they crave, many mistakenly think that it’s
the type of attention that will be fulfilling—as ‘Richelle’ wrote, “When
they are asked to participate in that, they don’t think twice because
someone is finally ‘valuing’ them and showing interest in them. They use
it as a Band-Aid solution to what they are dealing with because
reaching out to others seems to have failed.” From music videos to
“teen” magazines to Hollywood films to TV shows targeted towards their
age groups, girls are being conditioned to think that their physical
appearance is what gives them value as people. Probably (I hope) without
even realizing it, the boys are taking advantage of this cultural
conditioning by requesting—and in many, many cases receiving—the
personalized pornography that they seek. (In many cases, it bears
mentioning, these pictures constitute child pornography.)

The problem of sexting seems to be a hard one to address, in spite of
the fact that several high-profile bullying cases resulting in suicide
have highlighted the problem and oh-so-briefly outraged the public.
Teenage sub-culture is hard for adults to penetrate, especially since
teens are now connected to each other without any adult oversight. One
girl warned me that, “If you’re trying to change the minds of teenagers
with this article, it probably won’t work.” And there’s probably a lot
of truth to that. Especially when requests for explicit pictures stem
from pornography addictions, it’s going to take a lot to convince
teenagers in high schools that this behavior is self-destructive,
demeaning, and an attack on the dignity (self-inflicted as it often may
be) of the girls sending the photos as well as the boys receiving them.
But there are a few things I can say that I hope will at least resonate
with a few teenagers. Girls: If a guy asks you for explicit pictures,
he’s implicitly told you what he wants from you. The answer is it’s not you.
He wants your body, and in this scenario he doesn’t even want you
physically present. By sending him these pictures you’re voluntarily
reducing yourself to a one-dimensional sex object, without a
personality, without aspirations or intellect or even a voice. You are a
person with a body, not a body with a person. If the boy you’re talking
to doesn’t recognize that, then drop him hard, and wait for someone who
does. There will be guys who want to spend time with you, not just your
body.
Guys: If you’re asking for these pictures, think for a minute about
what you’re saying about girls and women in general. You’re revealing
something about yourself that’s pretty distasteful: Namely, that the
relationship you want is one defined by your particular sexual wants
rather than the presence of another person who demands—or should
demand—mutual respect and understanding. If you’re asking for these
pictures, you’re not acting the way a man should, by respecting (and in
some cases protecting) the women in your life. You are acting like a
predator, and a cannibalistic one to boot. And if the pictures are sent
to you unsolicited, you should delete them and tell her she’s worth more
than that.

The genders were created to live in harmony with each other. As long as
boys and girls choose to treat each other as sexual objects for sexual
gratification as opposed to potential friends or spouses for mutual
self-sacrifice, our culture will continue to become even more twisted
than it already is. But if instead boys and girls start seeing each
other as potential friends or spouses for mutual self-sacrifice, we can
instead begin the work of making our culture a much better place to
live.Reprinted with permission from Unmasking Choice

OTTAWA, August 28, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Health Canada announced
yesterday a voluntary recall of oral contraceptives made by Mylan
Pharmaceuticals after a pharmacy reported finding a placebo pill in
place of an active pill in a single package.

Health Canada said that the mistake “could result in reduced
effectiveness for contraception, with the possibility of an unplanned
pregnancy.”
The health agency advised users of Freya-28 to return unopened packages
to the pharmacy and use a “non-hormonal method of birth control.”

This is the second time this year that Health Canada has issued warnings about faulty contraception.
In April Health Canada recalled the birth control pill Alysena 28,
manufactured by Apotex, after packages were mistakenly issued with
placebos.

As many as 60 Canadian women launched
a class-action lawsuit against Apotex after sex while using the faulty
pill resulted in pregnancy. Four women reportedly opted to abort their
babies.
Health Canada has also been investigating the safety of the contraceptive pills Yaz and Yasmin since 2011.
A June 2013 Health Canada document revealed
that Yaz and Yasmin birth control pills produced by the mega drug
company Bayer have been linked to the deaths of at least 23 Canadian
women since 2007, one of them as young as 14. Many of the victims died
suddenly and unexpectedly from blood clots, a known risk factor for the
pill. The third generation pills contain drospirenone, Bayer’s unique
formulation of synthetic progestin.

Lawyers representing the victims called Health Canada’s statistics on the drug’s harm to women “just the tip of the iceberg.”
Critics of the pill have pointed out that there are safer methods for
postponing pregnancy that are just as effective, if not more, than the
pill, and 100 percent natural. These include the Billings ovulation
method, the Creighton Model FertilityCare System, and the symptothermal
method.
“I’m convinced if more women knew and understood what these other
methods are, they would use them instead,” said Andrea Mrozek, founder
of ProWomanProLife.org, in a recent interview with LifeSiteNews.com.

Danielle Lipp, a blogger with NewWaveFeminists who has been married for 13 months, wrote this month that using a natural method to postpone pregnancy has “taught us the responsibility that comes with sex”.
Lipp found one natural method that tracks a woman’s fertility cycle
through a computer device called a Lady-Comp “amazing for us”. She
blogged about her experience, saying she felt the “need to share it with
the world”.

Refuting the false claim that babies don’t survive abortions

Gosnell was, in fact, a rogue provider, and that
there is no evidence of a pattern of infants being “born alive” after an
abortion, much less of doctors killing infants in those circumstances….
[T]his notion – that there are multiple cases of fetuses surviving an
abortion, only to be killed by a doctor – is a confection of the
anti-choice camp, designed to replace fact-based arguments with the
lowest form of fear-mongering….
During a state committee hearing in Florida earlier this year, anti-choice legislators ambushed a Planned Parenthood lobbyist with a “born alive” inquiry…. Flummoxed, the lobbyist struggled to answer questions that were largely based on a myth.

Grimes based her conclusion on responses 38 attorneys general have provided to the House Judiciary Committee in answer to a letter that in part asked whether they had ever prosecuted an abortionist for murdering abortion survivors.
Grimes did acknowledge knowing of one abortionist who murdered abortion survivors (Kermit Gosnell) and one abortionist whose botched abortion resulted in a live birth (James Pendergraft).
But had Grimes cared to truly investigate, she would have found much more evidence.
How about 77 annually? Would that constitute “a pattern”? As Americans United for Lifereported:

In 2003, the CDC [Centers for Disease Control] reports that 40 newborns died as a result of pregnancy terminations in the United States.
In another 37 cases that year, abortion was a “secondary” cause of
death. In 2005, there were 45 reported born-alive deaths after abortion,
with another 21 “secondary” deaths associated with abortion.

Abortion reporting to the CDC is voluntary, with some blue states like California
opting not to, so those figures are almost certainly low. As an aside,
while the CDC has the mechanism to report these statistics, it has
stopped doing so.
When I went public about my experience holding an abortion survivor as a registered nurse at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, the hospital admitted to the Chicago Sun-Times no small number of babies survived abortions there:

In 2001, a perinatal symposium co-sponsored by the Waukesha Memorial Hospital OB/Gyn Dept. and The Medical College of Wisconsin OB/Gyn Dept. reported “Live birth” as a “complication” of a “labor Induction Mid-Trimester,” i.e., abortion:

How rare can post-abortive live births be if spotlighted?
Then there are the abortion survivors. Birth certificates for Gianna Jessen and Melissa Ohden prove they were two “complications.” Their stories and those of seven other survivors can be found at theabortionsurvivors.com.
Melissa, who runs that website, told me today she is in contact with
157 abortion survivors. The youngest is two years old. (Her adoptive
parents reached out to Melissa.)
Grimes failed to note at least one other live birth at a Pendergraft abortion clinic. Listen to the 911 call. Clinic workers told EMTs,”There’s nothing to see here,” and the EMTs inexplicably said, “fine.”

Another abortionist, Pierre Renelique, lost his license in 2009 following the death of an abortion survivor. Nevertheless, that baby’s murder was never prosecuted.
But back to the RH Reality Check story.
Actually, in her rush to carry water for the abortion industry, Grimes completely missed the story.
That is, why is there such a discrepancy between the reality of babies born alive after abortions and those AG reports?
For starters, is anyone in state government even looking for them? The Illinois Born Alive Infants Protection Act was signed into law eight years ago, in 2005. Yet to this day the State of Illinoisabortion reporting form doesn’t even ask the question: Did any babies survive your abortion?

Furthermore, as indicated on the symposium screen shot above, code
language is often used for late-term abortions. In that case they were
called “labor induction mid-trimester.” Loyola Hospitalcalled them ”early
induction of labor.” Christ Hospital said they were “mid-trimester
labor inductions.” When an abortion survivor died, Christ Hospital often
listed the cause of death as “extreme prematurity.” So the real cause
of death is often hidden.
Before Gosnell was caught, the State of Pennsylvania
would never have responded “yes” to a congressional letter asking if it
had a problem with a) abortion survivors, b) who were being murdered.
What abortionist in his or her right mind is going to report a fixed
botch?
The other story here is analyzing the motive for Grimes and RH Reality Check
to go out on such a long limb to claim born alive abortions are “myths”
in the first place. Both reasons are found in the story.

“… the anti-choice bogeyman of the soulless abortion doctor,
slaughtering newborns in clinics across the country with nary a second
thought.”

and

“… it is more than a little misleading for the House Judiciary
Committee to suggest that newborn children are being murdered by
abortion providers with regularity and abandon; it is the very
myth-making and fear-mongering on which they increasingly rely in their
push to eliminate safe abortion care.”

The answers are:
1. The prospect of abortion survivors – and abortion survivors being
murdered – only humanizes abortion victims in the minds of the public
and makes them think worse of the industry. It’s terrible PR.
2. The abortion industry is scrambling to stem the tide of bills among
the states creating abortion clinic regulations. It is also desperate
to stop investigations that expose its underbelly.Reprinted with permission from Jill Stanek

Pew poll shows few Americans find abortion morally acceptable

This week, the Pew Research Center released the results of a survey on
the morality of abortion. The results indicated that 49 percent of
Americans found abortion to be immoral. Only 15 percent found abortion
morally acceptable and 23 percent felt it was not a moral issue.
Religion was a strong predictor of abortion attitudes. White
Evangelicals were the religious group most opposed to abortion — with 75
percent indicating they found abortion immoral. Catholics were also
statistically more likely to consider abortion immoral. This is in
contrast to past surveys which indicated that Catholic views on abortion
are very similar to those of the broader population.

However, as many political professionals and researchers know, church
attendance is a far better predictor of abortion attitudes than
religious beliefs. Seventy percent of those who attend religious
services once a week were inclined to say abortion is immoral. Within
religious groups there were significant differences in attitudes between
frequent and infrequent church attendees. For instance, 74 percent of
white Catholics who attend Mass at least once a week consider abortion
morally wrong. This is compared with 40 percent of white Catholics who
attend Mass less often.

The demographic breakdown was also interesting. Pundits frequently
enjoy pointing out that young adults and women are statistically less
likely to describe themselves as “pro-life.” But, these pundits
typically ignore other measures of abortion attitudes that tell a
different story. For instance, in this survey, those under 50 are less
likely to consider abortion immoral – but the difference is very slight
– one percentage point. Furthermore, this Pew poll shows that women are
actually more likely than men to consider abortion immoral.
The fact that pro-lifers have convinced many Americans that abortion is
immoral has quietly paid some real dividends. For instance, few doctors
are willing to perform abortions and supporters of legal abortion have
had to make large investments to train the next generation of abortion
practitioners. Furthermore, several Gallup surveys have found that
pro-life sentiment has increased during a time when attitudes toward the
morality of abortion have remained fairly stable. The fact that more
Americans are translating their moral unease about abortion into
political and legal opposition to abortion is a positive development
– and is a nice testament to the good work of the pro-life movement.Reprinted with permission from National Review

Planned Parenthood: We Have a Job to Do

By Carol Tobias, NRLC PresidentEarlier
this month, the District of Columbia announced that it was giving
$375,000 to the local Planned Parenthood affiliate to help enroll people
in Obamacare. Planned Parenthood will be a “navigator”, training
representatives to help potential participants decide which plan is best
for them.
Shortly after the DC announcement, Secretary of Health and Human
Services Kathleen Sebelius announced that the federal government had
awarded another $655,000 to three other Planned Parenthood affiliates in
Montana, Iowa, and New Hampshire, also to help as navigators.
According to the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services,
these navigators will “serve as an in-person resource for Americans who
want additional assistance in shopping for and enrolling in plans in the
Health Insurance Marketplace this fall.”
The Attorneys General from 13 states wrote to Sebelius, expressing
concern because these navigators will have access to consumers’ personal
information, such as health records and social security numbers.

Pro-lifers who know that the Planned Parenthood Federation of America
(PPFA) is America’s largest abortion provider were, of course, appalled
by this additional influx of tax money. Planned Parenthood will be able
to advertise these services, encouraging potential consumers of
Obamacare to walk through their doors to get help. This is just one more
way for the Obama administration to make Planned Parenthood appear to
be a credible community organization.

Pro-lifers have a job to do. A poll this spring
found that 88% of the American public was familiar with Planned
Parenthood, with 63% saying that had a favorable opinion of the
organization. While 55% overall did not know that Planned Parenthood
performs abortions, an amazing 50% of people who identified themselves
as pro-life did not know that Planned Parenthood performs abortions. And
only six percent knew that Planned Parenthood kills more than 300,000
unborn children by abortion annually.

While you may think “abortion” when you hear Planned Parenthood, half
of your pro-life family members, friends, fellow church-goers,
co-workers, and neighbors do not. We need to educate not just the
public-at-large about Planned Parenthood and abortion, but fellow
pro-lifers as well. Randy O’Bannon, NRLC’s Director of Education and
Research, has done several articles for NRL News Today about PPFA. Share them with others. NRLC also has bumper stickers and other stickers available to help make the connection.

I don’t know if we can stop PPFA affiliates from becoming Obamacare
navigators, but we can let people know that PPFA is responsible for
killing unborn children.

WESTBURY, U.K., August 28, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com)
– Imagine waking up in a hospital bed unable to move. Doctors tell you
that you were in a freak road accident and have been in a coma for three
months. You can’t remember any of it. Actually, you can’t remember
anything from the past three years of your life.

Doctors then drop a bombshell, telling you that you are twelve weeks pregnant.
When Gemma Holmes, 26, heard the news, she remembers being “just in shock”.

"Rueben
is the best thing to ever happen to me. I may not remember how he came
to me but I've got the rest of our lives to make up for that," Gemma
told Reveal.co.uk in May.

But she chose to keep her baby, despite having no recollection of even being in a relationship.
“I just thought that if this little baby inside me had managed to
survive the awful crash then he was meant to be,” she told ITV’s This Morning.

Gemma was riding a scooter last year when she became involved in the
grisly accident. She was hurled across a busy road into a lamppost,
suffering a broken back and severe head injuries.
She was airlifted to the hospital where doctors did not expect her to survive.
When tests revealed that she was pregnant, doctors suggested abortion
to Gemma’s mom Julie, since prescribed surgeries could not be performed
on a pregnant woman.
But Julie would not make the decision to terminate her unborn grandson.
“So many things went through my head, but I wanted to wait until Gemma was awake to make the decision,” she said.
Gemma’s ‘yes’ to the life growing inside her broken body caused her
excruciating pain, since she was unable to take the usual high doses of
painkillers. These might have harmed her baby.
Doctors told Gemma that she couldn’t have a natural birth because it
would likely cause her death. Her broken back would not be able to cope
with the contractions.
But Gemma’s pain and sacrifice paid off when in May she met Ruben
Miracle Holmes for the first time, delivered by caesarian section.

"I couldn't stop crying when they first showed him to me, because he is
my little miracle baby. I was just so happy to see him after everything
we've been through," she told SWNS.com.
Both Gemma and Ruben are doing well. Gemma, who now gets around in a
wheelchair and is cared for by her mother, says that doctors will in a
few months do surgery on her back that may one day allow her to get back
on her feet.
“Ruben's my little miracle and I really hope I will one day be able to run around with him,” she said.
For Gemma, choosing life meant choosing happiness.
"Rueben is the best thing to ever happen to me. I may not remember how
he came to me but I've got the rest of our lives to make up for that,"
she told Reveal.co.uk in May.

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Newborns remember words they heard in the womb: study

HELSINKI, Finland, August 27, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Researchers at the University of Helsinki
have found that newborn babies learn and remember words that they heard
repeatedly in the third trimester of their mothers’ pregnancies.

Eino Partanen and colleagues at the Cognitive Brain Research Unit of
the university's Institute of Behavioral Sciences set out to discover if
there was measurable evidence that memory traces are formed prior to
birth.

New research has confirmed that babies have memories formed while still in the womb.

Previous studies looked at behavioral clues to the conjecture that
babies remember things they heard before birth, but Partanen and his
team decided instead to test babies using EEG sensors to look for neural
traces of memories that were formed in the womb.

"Although previous behavioral observations show that newborns react
differentially to unfamiliar sounds vs. familiar sound material that
they were exposed to as fetuses, the neural basis of fetal learning has
not thus far been investigated," the report on the study explained.
The researchers used a group of 33 mothers in their third trimester.
Half were a control group; the other half were given a recording to play
to their unborn children that included the meaningless, in Finnish,
word "tatata," interspersed with music. Periodically, the word would be
slightly altered with a change in pronunciation, syllable stress or
tone.

By the time they were born, the test babies had heard the word "tatata" an average of 25,000 times.
When the babies who heard the recording in utero were tested after
birth, the EEG scans showed a specific pattern of enhanced brain
activity when they heard the word again, indicating that they recognized
the word and its variations. The infants in the control group showed no
change in brain activity when they heard the word.
Moreover, the researchers were able to measure "a mismatch response"
when the babies heard the altered version of "tatata," indicating they
were even able to differentiate the sound of the word when it was
pronounced differently.
The researchers said this memory ability speeds up recognition of
sounds in the baby's native language and can be detected as a pattern of
brain waves, even in a sleeping child.
"Here we show direct neural evidence that neural memory traces are
formed by auditory learning prior to birth. Our findings indicate that
prenatal experiences have a remarkable influence on the brain’s auditory
discrimination accuracy, which may support, for example, language
acquisition during infancy," the researchers stated.

While the study concluded that it was unclear whether these newborn
memories persist beyond a few days, having tested only babies less than a
month old, an intriguing example long-term memory retention is that of
world famous Canadian conductor Boris Brott, who as a baby in the womb
was exposed to music his mother practiced in preparation for
performances.

Dr. Thomas Verny, in his book, “The Secret Life of the Unborn Child,” relates that when Brott was asked when he developed an interest in music, he replied, “before birth.”
Mr. Brott recounted that while learning new music pieces, he was
surprised to find he already knew certain pieces by heart, particularly
the viola parts. His mother, a viola player, was also surprised
initially, until she realized they were pieces that she had practiced
while pregnant with him.
Dr. Verny’s research into the life of the unborn child has found that
the child in the womb “can see, hear, experience, taste, and, on a
primitive level, even learn in utero. Most profoundly, he can feel - not
with an adult’s sophistication, but feel nonetheless.”
An abstract of the University of Helsinki study titled,
"Learning-induced neural plasticity of speech processing before birth"
is available here.